The Ghost of A Good Thing
by a.k.a.-ashley
Summary: After tragedy tears apart their young marriage, Peyton leaves Tree Hill without a look back. Six years later and she's back but he's no longer the man he used to be.
1. Chapter 1

**The Ghost of A Good Thing**

_Author's Note: This piece is a little darker than the rest of my stuff. I've got most of it all mapped out, it won't be very long, around six chapters. I hope you guys like it._

**Chapter 1**

Tree Hill was a small town, the kind of small town where everyone knows everyone else's business no matter how private or scandalous it may be. Gossip could spread from one side of town to the other in a matter of hours. So when Peyton Sawyer had found herself sitting nervously in the free clinic at the edge of town, waiting for her name to be called and a pregnancy test to be administered, she prayed that no one would recognize her. She hadn't needed any skewed information getting back to her boyfriend, at least not before she could figure out a way to tell him the news herself.

Luckily for her no one had noticed that usually infamous head of blonde curls sitting in the dinghy waiting room chairs of the Tree Hill Family Clinic. She'd only been four days late but for a girl whose cycle had usually been so regular, four days was enough to raise a red flag for her.

Two days after her clinic visit her fears had been confirmed. A misplaced pack of birth control pills and teenage hormones had inadvertently led to Peyton's placement among the ranks of every other teenage pregnancy statistic.

She had been four months away from graduating high school. Art school was supposed to follow, she'd scrimped and saved every penny she'd made with her work in Thud Magazine and behind the counter at Karen's Café. There had been enough money in her savings account for at least two years of tuition and board. College had always been her plan, and the realization that it might no longer happen had been harder to handle than her being pregnant at seventeen.

She'd known what Lucas' reaction would be when she told him. He'd always been practical, almost t a fault. She wasn't surprised when he'd suggested they get married. When both of their parents had been clued into the situation, and after the yelling had subsided, Larry and Karen had agreed with the idea of marriage.

They married in a very low-key ceremony at the local courthouse on a Friday afternoon after school had let out. They spent the weekend moving their things into a small apartment and by Monday they were back at school as if nothing had different. Peyton had known the kids at school would find out, she knew there would be stares and whispers in the hall, but she hadn't planned on the people she thought were her friends turning their backs on her. There was a certain stigma that came with being friends with a knocked-up married teenager, and her friends couldn't deal. It would have been a lie if Peyton had said the sudden desertion hadn't bothered them, but she never acted like it hurt her. She'd acquired a protective layer of thick skin in order to make it through the last months of school.

Peyton had reluctantly given up her dream of art school and her hard-earned tuition money went towards rent and doctor's appointments. Lucas had taken a job working construction after school. By the time he would come home most nights he was too exhausted to do anything other than collapse onto their bed and sleep.

Their marriage had been strained from the beginning. It had never been about them not loving each other, it had been about two kids suddenly thrust into the real world and having to deal with the choices they had made. But they had slowly adjusted to their new life and had attempted to make the best of it.

Peyton had always imagined her graduation from high school as a time for a new beginning, a summer filled with endless beach parties before the time would come to leave for college. For Lucas and Peyton graduating meant he started working construction full-time while she picked up extra shifts at the café. Peyton had tried not to dwell on the loss of art school. But she knew that it would always be in the back of her mind.

Her disappointment was soon forgotten during a restless night of sleep a few weeks of graduation. She'd gone to bed early with stomach cramps and woke several hours later with a sharp pain to her abdomen and the feeling of a sticky, warm liquid between her legs. Throwing back the blankets revealed a large bloodstain on the bed, the last thing she remembered was her screaming for Lucas and the sound of a glass shattering on the kitchen floor.

The days following the miscarriage and her hospital stay had left Peyton feeling empty. She'd refused to see anyone who stopped by the apartment and the phone was turned off. She had thought while she was pregnant that she'd never really wanted the burden of having a baby, and now that it was gone she'd wished she could take back every one of those thoughts.

Their young marriage had slowly begun to unravel. They hadn't shared a bed since she had come home from the hospital, and Peyton had forgotten the last time they'd had a conversation that didn't involve him poking his head in their bedroom door and asking if she needed anything. At the time she hadn't been concerned with any of those things, she spent two weeks after losing the baby laid up in her bed. She was broken and he hadn't known how to fix her.

He'd eventually convinced her to start getting out of bed and then out of the apartment. She would take walks around the neighborhood, come home and go back to bed. Nothing seemed to make her better and Lucas knew she wasn't going to get any better.

She'd come home from a walk one day and found Lucas waiting for her on the couch, a suitcase by his feet. She'd been confused, wanting to know what was going on and he'd told her that he was letting her go. The suitcase was full of her things and he was giving her a chance to get her life in order. She could move back in with her dad and do what she needed and take as much time as she needed. She didn't understand, and she'd felt tears start to fall. He'd come off the couch then and told her not to cry and wiped away her tears. He loved her too much to see her hurting. He'd just wanted her to be happy and he knew he couldn't do that anymore. She'd tried to protest, to tell him he was wrong. But eventually she'd left her apartment and her husband behind and moved back in with her dad.

When Lucas had let her go he'd imagined that she'd take a few months to grieve and be alone before she'd come back and they would work on their marriage together. But a month after she'd moved back into her dad's house Lucas got a note in the mail. He'd recognized her handwriting on the envelope, all the note had said was that she was getting out of town and didn't know if she was ever coming back. She'd needed a change and to get away from Tree Hill, and she'd ended the note by saying that she'd always love him. He'd crumpled the note into a ball and thrown it into the garbage before sweeping his arm across the counter and knocking all of its contents to the floor, and then he'd dug the note out of the trash and read it again.

It would be over five years before Lucas would see her again, and a lot would change in that amount of time.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Ghost of A Good Thing**

**Chapter 2**

Standing in the middle of a swarm of bustling commuters, Peyton scanned the crowd for a familiar face. And when she saw him all the worry and doubt she'd had about returning to her hometown seemed to melt away as she ran into his waiting arms.

"Hi daddy." She hadn't called him that in years and he smiled when he heard it. She kissed his cheek as he pulled her into a tight embrace.

Larry slowly released his grip and held her back at arms length to get a good look at her long-absent only child.

"So the prodigal daughter has returned." He smiled warmly as she playfully rolled her eyes.

"Only because you begged me to come back and spend Thanksgiving with you and my new step-mom."

"Honey, I think after a year you can stop referring to Natalie as you 'new' step-mom."

"Sorry. But it's just taking a little getting used to."

"So how are you feeling about being back here after six years of being away?" He asked gently while grabbing her small suitcase from the ground next to her.

"I think that's going to take some getting used to as well." She forced a smile out, trying to appear optimistic about the whole situation.

"Well I'm glad you're back. Even if it is only for a few days." He draped a protective arm around her shoulders and led her out to his waiting car.

Stepping into her old bedroom for the first time in years, she was amazed that her father had left everything untouched. It was as if time had stopped the day she'd become a wife at seventeen and moved away. She hadn't taken much when she'd moved away so there were still plenty of memories scattered on top of her dressers and old band posters on the walls.

As she threw her bulky travel bag onto her old desk the strap caught the corner of a long forgotten picture frame, knocking it to the floor. Peyton felt her stomach hollow when she knelt down and picked up the frame, which held a picture of her and Lucas taken during their junior year.

When she left Tree Hill after her miscarriage she didn't say a word to him. She just packed her bags and snuck off like a scared little girl during the middle of the night, ending up in Arizona at the doorstep of her father's sister, an aunt she hadn't spoken to since she was ten. Away from home Peyton got a chance to start over and pick up the shattered pieces of her life.

She'd always thought that after some time away, she would eventually return home to Tree Hill and to Lucas. But as the months passed Phoenix eventually began to feel like home, and a year after she'd arrived divorce papers with her signature were being sent back to Lucas. She'd never called him or given him fair warning, the only way she had known he'd gotten the papers is when they came back with his signature.

Married and divorced before the age of nineteen wasn't how she'd wanted to end up. She wanted to more out of life. So she enrolled in a small community college and eventually transferred to a university where she'd gotten a degree in art history and after college started work as a museum curator. Her job allowed her enough free time to work on her own art, which she was still passionate about.

In all her time away Peyton had worked hard to avoid thinking about the life and people she had left behind. Now that she was back, it was all that she could think of.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't notice her father knocking lightly on her open door. Another knock snapped her from her daze.

"Are you planning on seeing him while you're here?" Larry asked carefully.

"Who?"

Larry motioned towards the frame in her hand.

Peyton shook her head. "I wasn't planning on it, no."

"I don't want to tell you how to run your life, but you've got to know that Lucas is a different person now. I just don't want to see you getting hurt." Larry didn't have time to clarify his cryptic warning as his ringing cell phone interrupted them.

With her father getting called away on business Peyton was left a free afternoon. She tried to occupy her time with unpacking and reorganizing her old record collection. But vintage Rolling Stones albums could only hold her interest for so long and found that she was growing restless. Peyton had wanted to stay under the radar while in town but she saw that plan slipping away as she called the only person other than her father that she had kept in contact with.

"Haley James!" Peyton beamed as her old friend walked into the small coffeehouse.

Haley spotted her and quickened her pace, wrapping Peyton in a firm hug. "It's been a long time Peyton." The pair settled into a table on the patio, two cups of coffee split between them.

Java Express had always been known for two things, Wednesday night readings of crappy pretentious poetry and the worst cup of coffee in town. But with Karen's Café being the only other coffee shop in town, Peyton was willing to choke down the stale liquid.

"So how is Alex?" Peyton smiled coyly over the rim of her cup.

"Alex is good. We're just taking it slow for now. Things with Nathan ended badly and I don't want to jump into things to fast." She gave a half-smile and it was obvious to Peyton that her friend wanted to be happy again.

"How about you and Kyle, you guys have been together for a while." Haley tried to pry as gently as possible.

"Kyle and I are doing fine." Peyton had been seeing him for almost a year. He was good to her and she knew that he loved her, but she was having a hard time with her own feelings for him.

"That wasn't a very convincing answer." Haley questioned. "I thought you guys were living together?"

"We are living together." Peyton sighed. The look on her friends face begged for a better explanation. "I don't know what is wrong with me Haley. I've got this great committed guy who loves me. And I should be able to love him, to give him what he deserves. But it just feels like something is holding me back from being able to love him."

As Peyton trailed off she noticed that Haley had fixed her gaze on something across the street. Turning in her chair Peyton could see what had her friends attention, Lucas Scott was standing across the street looking in their direction.

The look on his face was unmistakable shock; she could see that even from across the street. When she met eyes with him, he quickly lowered his eyes and walked away.

"I think that may be the answer to your problem." Haley offered her advice, not really knowing if Peyton would take it.

Peyton was still trying to get over the shock of seeing Lucas, and Haley had to repeat her earlier statement, which was met with an exasperated sigh.

But Peyton knew that Haley might have been right, that maybe her heart hadn't completely let go of Lucas. And she knew that in order to make things right with Kyle, she'd have to face her past.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Ghost of A Good Thing**

**Chapter 3**

She had wrestled with the decision of whether or not to track down Lucas, not really knowing if he would even want to see her. But Peyton eventually went against her better judgment and decided to find him. She secretly swiped her father's phonebook and was surprised to find that Lucas still lived in the apartment they had once shared.

It felt silly lying to her father about where she was headed, especially considering that she was a grown woman of twenty-four. But Peyton wasn't ready defend her decision especially after all of the warnings he had given to her, so she lied and told him she would be at the movies with Haley. But a movie was the furthest thing from her mind as she headed towards the Palm Vista apartment complex.

Pulling into the parking lot, she noticed the old complex had begun showing its age. Paint and stucco had chipped away from the exterior walls and oil stains, trash and rundown cars littered the parking lot. Time had been bad to the place.

As she climbed the familiar steps to her old apartment it took all that she had not to turn and run straight back to her old convertible. But something kept her moving and she pushed passed the doubts and the fear and knocked on his door.

He didn't answer after a long series of knocks and Peyton was frustrated by the outcome, she'd wanted to get things over with as quickly as possible and it needed to be in person, this wasn't a conversation she wanted to have over the phone or through a clumsily worded e-mail. As she pulled her car keys from her pocket she realized that the ring still held her old apartment key.

With one last look down the empty hallway to make sure no one was watching her sneak into her ex-husband's apartment, Peyton slipped her key into the door and was surprised to find after all the time that he had never changed the locks.

Whatever she had been expecting when she opened the door was forgotten once she had snuck inside. The first thing she noticed was how messy the small place was. From her spot in the living room she could see takeout containers spilling out of the trash can and dirty dishes stacked too high in the sink. The kitchen alone looked like every stereotypical bachelor pad.

As she walked through the living room, she subconsciously moved towards the t.v. stand. When they had been married, the small shelves had been filled with pictures of them. Lucas had thought it would make things easier, that maybe they would remind them of the good times they had shared and that things would eventually get better again. Those framed pictures were now gone, replaced by a thick layer of dust, a few empty beer cans and an old issue of a cheap men's magazine.

The small glimpse into his new life had begun to make Peyton feel uneasy, she hadn't even seen him yet but it already felt like he had become a stranger. As she turned to look around the rest of the room she noticed a cardboard box peeking out from behind the beat-up couch. Curiosity got the best of her and she pulled the box from its spot. Inside the box she found the missing picture frames. The frames still held the pictures of them, but they weren't in the best condition. The glass had been broken out of them and the frames were dented and cracked. It looked like someone had thrown them.

Rummaging deeper into the box, she found what must have been things she had left behind when she left. A few t-shirts, bracelets, a few books and some music filled the rest of the box. He'd cleared out any reminders of her, but never gone through with getting completely rid of them. But from the looks of the broken frames, he must have hated her after she took off. Peyton found herself questioning whether or not she wanted to see him after all of this. And then she noticed the bottles.

Tucked behind the armchair near the sofa was a small collection of glass bottles. Vodka was apparently his weapon of choice, two empty bottles and a third was half full.

Her discovery shed some light on the warnings that Larry given her about Lucas. The state of the apartment, the box full of her stuff, the broken frames, the bottles; all evidence that Lucas had changed. Suddenly feeling the need for air, she pushed the box back behind the couch and left the stifling environment of the apartment making sure to lock the door behind her.

As she headed down the dimly lit hallway the last person she expected to run into was Lucas.

"Peyton?"

"Hi." They weren't the first words she had imagined saying to him after all the time that had passed, but she was at a loss for words.

Time had been good to Lucas. The skinny, baby-faced boy she had fallen in love with had been transformed into a strong man with chiseled features. His wardrobe of jeans, yellow work boots and a tool belt slung over his shoulder answered any questions she might have had about his current occupation. If possible, he was taller than she remembered and the years of construction work had been good to his body. She couldn't help but notice the way the sleeves of his shirt clung to his arms and the way her mind wandered as she looked at him.

"What are you doing here Peyton?" Aside from the initial shock of seeing her, Lucas stood stone-faced in front of her as if she hadn't disappeared for six years and he'd just asked if she'd seen any good movies lately. He refused to give her any sort of reaction.

"I'm back in town to spend Thanksgiving with my dad."

"But what are you doing here?" he motioned towards his apartment door. "I'm surprised you could find your way back after all this time."

She ignored the baiting remark he had thrown at her. "There are some things I want to talk about you with, clear the air about." He didn't say anything so she kept going. "I was hoping maybe we could meet somewhere and talk."

"There's a place two blocks from here called Hennessey's. We can meet there tonight at 8. Now I've got to go get cleaned up from work." He brushed past her without another word.

"God what are you doing Peyton?" she muttered under her breath as she walked back to her car.

She spent more time than necessary getting ready for what she wouldn't dare call a date, with Lucas. It shouldn't have mattered what her hair looked like, or if the top she was wearing hugged her curves in the right places, but no matter how much she resisted it did matter. She was putting the finishing touches on her lip-gloss when her cell phone started to ring.

"So how's small town America treating you?" the light-hearted voice on the other end brought a smile to her face.

"I was just thinking about you." It wasn't entirely the truth, but it felt like the right thing to say.

"I just called to let you know how lonely it is in this house without you. How much longer until you come home?"

"Come on now Kyle, desperation is never a quality a woman finds attractive in her boyfriend." She could hear him laugh on the other end. "But I miss you too and it won't be much longer without me."

"So what do you have planned tonight?"

Telling him the truth would have had messy consequences. Peyton had never fully disclosed her entire history with Lucas to Kyle. He knew that she had been married and that it hadn't lasted, but he didn't know about the baby or the way she had left. So she lied.

"I think I'm just going to stay in tonight, maybe go to dinner with my dad."

"Well I just wanted to see how you were doing, so I'll let you go."

"I'll be home in a few days." She reassured him.

"I know. I love you."

"Me too." She had always answered his declarations of love in the same way. He had always been patient with her and never pushed but Peyton knew he couldn't wait forever for her to feel the same way.

She pushed aside and lingering thoughts of her faithful boyfriend back at home and headed out to her secret meeting with her ex-husband.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Ghost of A Good Thing**

**Chapter 4**

The meeting place Lucas had suggested, Hennessey's, turned out to be an old Irish pub that had seen better days. The place could be described as seedy, at best. She'd met him out front. His demeanor was more relaxed than when she'd seen him earlier, and it wasn't until she smelled the scotch on his breath that she realized why that was.

He led her into the dark bar, past the tables filled with people she wouldn't want to meet alone in a dark alley. Everyone seemed to know Lucas, including the woman behind the bar who called him by name. He acknowledged her with a small wave and settled into a table near the back.

A bar maid wandered over to their table and took their drink orders, they both ordered stiff drinks. An awkward silence lingered over the table after the waitress had gone, but the arrival of their drinks minutes later seemed to chip away at some of the ice.

"How's the construction business treating you?" Lucas looked up at her, surprised that she knew. "When I ran into you at the apartments, your clothes were a dead giveaway."

"My job is fine, I'm fine. Can we just skip this small talk Peyton? You've been gone for six years, never once calling me in all that time to let me know where you were and if you were okay. And now suddenly, here you are wanting to meet with me. Tell me why you're really here." His voice was calm as he swallowed the last of his drink, signaling to the waitress that he needed another.

She studied him for a moment, wondering how to answer the question he had just thrown at her. Peyton followed his direction, swallowing the rest of her drink and ordering another.

"I told you why I was back. I'm here to spend Thanksgiving with my dad."

"Yeah well, I don't buy it. So what it is it really Peyt, you still have feelings for me? You want us to try to work it out?" It was during this exchange that she began to see a different side to Lucas, the more he drank the more arrogant he became.

"I didn't come back here to be with you Lucas. I'm with someone now; I have been for over a year. The only reason I'm here is to get closure on this part of my life."

Peyton thought she saw a trace of hurt flash across his face hidden behind the cocky smile he had plastered across his face.

The waitress dropped off their second round of drinks and Lucas quickly finished the small glass in front of him.

"Didn't you get all the closure you needed when you signed the divorce papers and sent them to me without any sort of warning."

"I'm sorry for the way I did it and for the way I left town without any word, but I was young and scared. We were just kids Lucas."

"Yep, I guess we were." He remained casual. Peyton wasn't sure if he was just putting up a front, but the one-sided conversation was frustrating her.

She wanted to yell at him, to scream at him to show some sort of emotion. Anger, hurt, anything to show he was alive. But a busty blonde woman approaching their table interrupted her.

Peyton watched as the woman leaned down towards Lucas, draping a lanky arm across his shoulders and whispering something in his ear. She could tell by the way the woman touched him that they were more than friends. Her touch was familiar and intimate. Peyton felt herself growing increasingly uncomfortable as the woman continued to whisper in his ear, ignoring the fact that Peyton was sitting two feet away. It didn't help that Lucas had noticed her discomfort but did nothing to dismiss the still unnamed woman. Peyton sensed that Lucas enjoyed the fact that she was so obviously uncomfortable.

The woman said something that made Peyton laugh, loudly, before she turned and left. A heavy silence fell over their table, Lucas glanced quickly at Peyton before signaling for another drink.

"For someone who came here for closure, you seemed awfully jealous when I was talking to that girl." He smiled smugly at her.

Peyton scoffed at his remark. "I wasn't jealous of her, I don't even know her." He was baiting her, and she didn't want to bite but she couldn't resist. "Who is she, a friend of yours?"

"You could say that. We see each other from time to time. It's nothing serious like you apparently have, but we have fun."

Lucas' third round made it's way to the table and he swallowed the contents, wincing slightly as the vodka burned its way down his throat.

"Just for the sake of curiosity Peyton, if you had come back to Tree Hill without some boyfriend back home, would you want there to something between us again?"

"I don't know." It was the truth. Things between them were more complicated than her having a boyfriend.

"No offense to your boyfriend, but I'm pretty sure that there's still something between us, even now with him in the picture." He leaned back in his chair, balancing carefully on its back legs with his hands clasped behind his head.

Part of her wanted to give his chair a hard push to send him tumbling to the floor for being an arrogant asshole, and the other part wanted to kiss him as hard as she could because she knew he was right. But instead of admitting the truth, she grabbed her purse and left the table muttering that it had been a mistake seeing him.

He didn't call after her and she made it halfway across the bar before she felt his hand on her arm forcing her to stop. And when she turned to face him, his lips crashed down onto hers. And for a moment she forgot they were standing in the middle of a seedy, old bar, and that she had a boyfriend back home.

The kiss was aggressive and things quickly escalated. Her brain screamed at her to pull away, but she pushed the thought from her mind and her mouth opened to allow him entrance.

"Let's get out of here." He whispered, his voice husky against her skin. He tossed a couple of folded bills onto their table and practically dragged her out of the bar.

Outside the bar, the chilled night air felt even colder against their flushed skin. They stared at each other in silence before he came towards her and backed her up against the outside wall of the bar, his thigh wedged between her legs, and kissed her hard. His mouth moved from her lips to the spot on the side of her neck that he remembered would set her off. He heard her breath hitch in her throat and her hands grasped tightly around the front of his shirt.

It was only a five minute drive to his house but while seated in the passenger seat, she touched the inside of his thigh and he ran a red light to get there faster.

They barely made it to his apartment with all the stops in the stairwell, but he had her shirt off before the front door slammed shut behind them.

He had her up against a wall in the hallway, his mouth all over her. And then her legs were wrapped tightly around his waist and with expert fingers he had her bra lying in a heap on the floor as he stumbled down towards the bedroom.

It had been like they were teenagers again with their inability to keep their hands off each other, but they weren't kids anymore. They were both more experienced and no longer fumbled with belt buckles and pant zippers, and hands that knew the right places to touch replaced innocent giggles and whispered declarations of love.

She remembered the soft touch of his hands when they were younger, the way his soft fingers used to trace lightly across her ribs. The way he used to smile after he kissed her. He didn't smile anymore, and his once soft hands were replaced by rough calloused ones that drug across her bare stomach and pulled her jeans down her legs.

The sex was rougher than she had expected. All the anger and resentment he'd refused to show in the bar, came through in the way he touched her, the way his teeth nipped at her bare skin, and in the way he roughly pushed himself into her as she gasped his name.

There were no words spoken between them that night. There was no talk of broken marriages, new boyfriends or the baby they had lost. It was just them, together again, at least for one more night.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Ghost of A Good Thing**

**Chapter 5**

The bright sunlight of the early morning hour filtered in through the partially opened blinds and painted sun-colored stripes across Peyton's body. She stretched out across the large bed, and the feel of the cool sheet across her bare skin snapped her back to reality. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and she had mixed feelings about the impending morning after.

She rolled over to face his side of the bed and found it empty. She called his name and watched him appear in the doorway minutes later buttoning a flannel work shirt. He sat on the edge of the bed, tying the laces on his work boots and Peyton leaned over and kissed him tenderly on the spot behind his ear.

"Don't do that Peyton." He stood from the bed and walked away from her.

"Do what?" she asked as she stared after him and pulled the sheet up under her arms.

"Don't kiss me like that and try and make last night more than what it was."

"And what was it Lucas?"

He shook his head and refused to answer her question. "I've got to be at a job site in fifteen minutes and I'm already running late. So why don't you lock up when you leave?"

"I want to know what you meant about last night."

"Fine you want to know so bad Peyton, here it is. Last night was nothing more than sex, it was good sex, but that's it. Things between us have not changed, and I don't want you back. Now it's time for us both to go our separate ways."

Peyton had suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable wrapped only in a thin sheet as Lucas spat bitter words at her. She couldn't find the right words or thoughts to comprehend what had happened; Lucas noticed her expressionless face as it stared back at him.

"What Peyton? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's like I don't even know who you are anymore, when did you become this person Lucas?"

"The day I realized you weren't coming back." There was a softness in his voice that for a moment reminded her of the old Lucas, and then it vanished when he grabbed his keys from the nightstand and stared back at her, all emotion gone from his eyes.

"You know Peyton, instead of worrying about the kind of person I am, you'd probably be better off worrying about the kind of person your boyfriend is. Most guys don't like it when their girlfriends screw around on them."

The sting of his words hit her hard, like a vicious slap to the face. "You're a fucking bastard."

"Yeah well, I've been called a lot worse. I'll see you around Peyton." He left the room without another word to her.

She fought back angry tears until the front door slammed shut, and then she let go and allowed large sobs to rack her body.

As she crawled out of bed minutes later, tears still blurring her vision, she had to endure the humiliation of searching for her underwear that had been discarded in the hallway along with the rest of hr clothes. She dressed quickly and checked her appearance in the bathroom mirror.

Her eyes were red and swollen from the crying, and when Peyton looked in the mirror she didn't like the pathetic girl staring back at her. So she wiped the tears from her eyes and refused to allow herself to cry anymore over Lucas. She picked up her purse, slammed the door behind her and made the two block walk of shame back to her car still parked at the bar.

It was still early when she arrived back at her dad's house, the time allowed her to sneak in unnoticed and able to avoid any questions about where she had spent the night.

Tiptoeing quietly through the house, she snuck into her old bedroom and locked the door behind her. It was only then that she noticed that she had left her cell phone behind and the screen indicated that she had plenty of messages waiting for her. They had all been from Kyle, his voice had become increasingly concerned with each message. She had told him she'd be at home all night and when he couldn't get a hold of her he had gotten worried.

His last message had urged her to call him as soon as she got his messages, no matter how late the time. So she called him, having no idea what she would say when he answered.

"Peyton?" his voice was groggy on the other end.

"Yeah, it's me. I got your messages. I left my phone behind."

"Where were you? I was worried, you said you'd be at your dad's house all night and I couldn't get in touch with you." The worry and stress had been evident in his voice.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you." She felt a tremble begin in her voice and it eventually became too much for her to hide and she started to cry.

"Peyton, don't cry. Please don't cry. I didn't mean to upset you, I'm not mad."

"No it's not your fault, I'm sorry for acting like this."

"What's going on Peyton, did something happen?"

"I'm fine really, I just don't know what's happening right now." She tried her best to hold back her sobs.

"You're scaring me, maybe I should come out there and fly home with you."

"No, Kyle. I'll be okay. I have Thanksgiving to get through tomorrow and then I'll be home. I just wanted to let you know that I was fine."

"Promise me you're okay Peyton." His genuine concern for her made the guilt she carried all the more overwhelming.

"Everything is okay Kyle. I have to go, I'll talk to you later." She quickly ended the call before he could reply.

After her call to Kyle had ended in disaster Peyton gathered some clean clothes from her still packed suitcase and headed quietly towards the bathroom.

Under the steaming hot water that cascaded from the showerhead, Peyton scrubbed viciously at her bare skin as she tried to erase the memory of his fingers, his mouth on her flesh. By the time she had finished her skin was a bright red and had been scrubbed raw.

As she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her, she caught a glimpse of herself in the fogged over mirror. For the second time in the short day she was staring back at herself wondering why things had happened like they did. No matter how much she wanted to blame Lucas for everything that had happened, she knew it wouldn't be the truth. She knew that she had come back to Tree Hill hoping to see him and she hadn't pushed him away when he had kissed her in that bar or when he had taken her back to his apartment. She knew what would happen if she saw him again. She had been just as much to blame and not having anyone else to blame made the situation even more difficult to bear.

The next day she sat down for Thanksgiving dinner with her father and stepmother like nothing had ever happened. They talked about her job and her friends back home, but when the subject veered towards Kyle and marriage Peyton quickly changed the subject. Her father drove her to the airport hours after dinner and they shared a warm goodbye before Peyton walked away from Tree Hill without another look back, just as she had done six years before.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Ghost of A Good Thing**

_This will be the final chapter to this fic, I've loved working on this but I feel like it's run its course and this is how I had intended to end it all along. I hope you like it. Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed each chapter_.

**Chapter 6**

Seven months had passed since she'd last seen Lucas. She had done her best to keep him out of her mind and move forward. She never expected him to show up on night, unannounced, on her doorstep.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, the initial shock of seeing him had not yet worn off.

"I was hoping maybe we could talk?" he asked gently. At first glance, she noticed that the cocky bravado he had carried with him months ago had seemed to fade.

"You flew across the country so we could talk. Have you ever heard of a telephone?"

"I knew you wouldn't talk to me if I called, so I figured maybe coming out here would give me a better chance."

"Well, sorry you wasted a trip." She tried to slam the door in his face but he managed to wedge his foot in the door.

"Please Peyton, I know you don't owe me a second chance but there are things I need to say to you and then you'll never have to see me again. I promise."

She stared back at him for a beat and then stepped aside, silently offering entrance. He accepted the offer and stepped into the small house.

"Is your boyfriend going to mind that I'm here?" He asked the question honestly as he took a seat on the couch in the living room.

"Turns out you were right about my boyfriend. I came home and was stupid enough to tell him the truth about what happened. I guess he wasn't okay with his girlfriend screwing someone else, so he packed his bags and left me." When she spoke, her words seemed empty and cold but her face told a different story.

"I'm sorry Peyton, I…"

She cut him off. "Don't Lucas, I don't need your pity. Just tell me why you're here, so you can leave."

"Okay. When you left, after we lost the baby, I held out hope for months that you would come back. I begged your dad to tell me where you were, I just wanted to talk to you and know that you were all right, but he wouldn't tell me anything. And then I got the divorce papers and it was like I snapped. I stared at those papers for three days, and in the process destroyed my apartment and went through three bottles of the strongest liquor I could get my hands on, before I signed them and tried to forget about it all. My drinking just sort of escalated from there and I just never got it back under control."

"So the reason you're here is to place blame for your alcoholism squarely on my shoulders?"

"No, Peyton. I'm here because I have to apologize to you. That day in my apartment, when I stormed out, I didn't go to work. I drove to some bar and drank until I picked a fight with the wrong guy and ended with a beer bottle smashed over my head. And so I found myself in a hospital emergency room still drunk and bleeding all over myself, replaying the last conversation I had with you and wondering when I had become such an asshole. It was like a light bulb turning on in my head, I realized that I didn't want to be a drunk. I called Haley and she drove me to a rehab clinic that night."

"So why are you here now?" Her voice had taken on a softer tone, and she could feel herself warming up to him no matter how much she resisted.

"I've been going to A.A. meetings since I got out of rehab. And there are these steps you're supposed to follow to help stay sober, step eight is making a list of all the people I hurt while drinking." He leaned over and pulled a piece of yellow legal pad paper from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to her.

Peyton unfolded the paper and looked it over. Scrawled in blue ink was a long list of names, all of which had check marks next to them, all except for hers.

Lucas continued. "I could tell from the look in your eyes that morning that I had hurt you more than I had ever hurt anyone before. I wanted to give you your space before I tried to find you, and now I've found you. Step nine is making amends to all the people I have hurt, and that is supposed to help me get over my need to drink."

"So you're here to apologize so you can feel better about yourself?"

"No, well that's what the book says, but I'm here because I need you to know how sorry I am for the way I treated you the last time we were together. And believe me I know how inadequate the word sorry must be in this situation. But I was different person when I was drinking, and I'm not that guy anymore and I never will be again."

Peyton had sat quietly in the armchair near the couch and listened to what he had said. His words seemed honest and sincere, and she saw that he really meant what he said. But she felt a sense of guilt that continued to gnaw at the back of her mind.

"For the last seven months I've imagined what this day would be like if it ever came, you coming back and begging for my forgiveness. And I swore to myself that if it ever happened that I would turn you away, and still hate you afterwards. But you're here and I don't hate you."

"That's good, right?" He smiled and without thinking reached for her hand, which she let him take.

"What happened isn't just your fault. I'm just as much to blame for what happened between us. I'm the one who ran off and left you. I'm the one that broke your heart, and you would have never taken that first drink if it weren't for me. You were the first boy I ever loved and I threw that away when I took off. I just couldn't deal with the miscarriage and all the guilt."

"What did you have to feel guilty for, losing the baby was not your fault."

"The whole time I was pregnant I thought of the baby as a burden, I resented it for, what I thought was, ruining my life. But it wasn't until the baby was gone that I realized how much I wanted it." She looked up at him, tears welled up in her eyes, and felt relieved that she was finally able to open up about her guilt for the first time.

"You can't blame yourself for feeling that way. We were kids Peyton, we had our entire lives ahead of us and then everything changed. We were going to be parents before we were legally adults, acceptance of that reality was not going to come overnight. But if our baby would have made it full term I know we would have made it work."

Peyton stood from her chair and wiped the tears from her eyes, Lucas followed and wrapped her in a comfortable embrace. The move surprised them both, but what surprised her even more was how natural and familiar it seemed.

"This is good therapy right, talking like this?" When he smiled, it was like he was the eighteen-year-old boy she had never stopped loving and a new more mature man that she had yet to meet.

"I'm sorry Lucas, for everything that has happened between us."

"I am too."

On the surface they had both changed, he had become an angry young man who forgot his pain in the bottom of a liquor bottle and she was the girl who carried the weight of guilt and anger on her shoulders for six years. But deep down they were the same two kids who loved each other years ago and never really stopped.

"What are we doing here Peyton? I didn't come back here to win you back but now that I'm here it's all I can think of. I still love you, you know?"

"Before this can go any farther I think we both need to see someone, a therapist or a counselor. We need to work on our issues, individually and together. Because we can never work unless we both agree to change." Though they had broken the hug, she still clung tightly to his hand.

"What are you saying? That you want to try again?" He looked hopeful for the first time that night.

"I'm saying that I'm willing to try again as long as we take things slow, I don't want us to ruin this again."

"We won't Peyton, we won't ruin this again because I'm not going to let myself give up on us again." She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. He couldn't help the smile that crept across his face. "So where do we go from here?"

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" she asked.

"Dinner would be good." He smiled and followed her into the kitchen.

Four months later Lucas packed up his apartment in Tree Hill and moved out to Phoenix and into Peyton's small house, they had both decided that a fresh start would mean getting away from the town that reminded them of their past. Another year passed before an impulsive weekend trip to Las Vegas led to them to a small wedding chapel and the decision that they were ready. It had taken them six years to find each other again, but time didn't matter to the two of them. All that mattered was that they were finally together.

_Fin_.


End file.
